The invention relates to a holder for a rectangular cassette provided with a recording medium, which cassette has a cassette main wall optionally provided with a label, which holder comprises two main walls, a front wall having a window and a rear wall, which walls are parallel to the cassette main wall; two long side walls, one short bottom wall; and one open side opposite the short bottom wall; said holder walls bounding a cassette-receiving space into which the cassette can be inserted via the open side.
A holder of this type is known from FR-PA 2,632,759 as a container for video cassettes. One of the short sides is open for inserting a cassette into or removing it from the cassette-receiving space. The holder is made of a plastic and has a narrow plastics window. One of the long sides of the holder is also transparent.
Many of the prior-art holders have several disadvantages. Even if a cassette has been inserted correctly into the holder, i.e. with its back facing outward, it is difficult to ascertain what programme has been prerecorded because the label on the back of the cassette is narrow and a text on this back label is difficult to recognize from a distance. Another disadvantage is that the cassette tends to slip out of the holder through the open side. Yet another disadvantage is that two hands are needed to remove the cassette from the holder.
All these disadvantages occur when the prior-art holder is used in conjunction with video cassettes, but become even more serious when it is used in conjunction with prerecorded audio cassettes. This is particularly so when this cassette is an audio cassette of a new type as proposed by the Applicant, see the U.S. patent application Ser. No. 685,384, filed Apr. 12, 1991, Attorney's Docket No. PHN 13,455, herewith incorporated by reference. This new cassette, a so-called digital audio cassette, is to be marketed inter alia in a version in which the magnetic tape has been provided with a music programme in a digital format by the relevant music industry. On a main wall, such music cassettes will have a large label providing the kind of pictorial and text information as is customary for gramophone record and Compact Disc packages. In the case of gramophone records and Compact Discs, the pictorial and text information is provided respectively on and in the package. In the case of said digital music cassette the cassette, itself can be provided with a decorative and informative label which largely covers one main (front) wall of the cassette. The back of the cassette may also be provided with a label. Obviously, due to the presence of reel shaft insertion holes, this back label is much smaller and can therefore accommodate only a minimum of information which, moreover, can be read only at close range, as in the case of the afore-mentioned video cassettes.